“When I started shooting ‘Police Woman’ (1974),
someone asked me if I had ever played a sleuth before. I said, ‘Yes,
many times.’ I thought they were asking me if I had ever played
a slut. I didn't know what a sleuth was.” Angie Dickinson

Golden Globe Award winning actress Angie Dickinson is famous to
television audiences as Sergeant 'Pepper' Anderson in the successful
crime series “Police Woman,” which ran on NBC from 1974
to 1978. The role brought the talented actress her Golden Globe
Award, a TP de Oro Award and several nominations at the Emmy and TV
Land Awards. Specializing in portraying sharp, sexy, tough-minded
women, Dickinson is also known for starring in such movies as “Rio
Bravo” (1959), “Ocean's Eleven” (1960), “The
Killer” (1964), “Point Blank” (1967), “Big
Bad Mama” (1974) and its sequel, “Big Bad Mama II”
(1987). She also starred in “Dressed to Kill” (1980),
where she took home a Saturn Award for her role of Kate Miller. Her
more recent film credits include “The Maddening” (1995),
“Sabrina” (1995), “The Last Producer” (2000),
“Duets” (2000), “Pay It Forward” (2000), the
2001 remake “Ocean's Eleven” and “Elvis Has Left
the Building” (2004). Dickinson's other TV appearances include
roles in “Dial M for Murder” (1981), “Cassie and
Company” (1982), “Hollywood Wives” (1985), “Wild
Palms” (1993) and “Mending Fences” (2009).

In the entertainment business since 1954, Dickinson received a
star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987. She was handed the Golden
Boot Award in 1989.

Dickinson has been married twice. She was married to ex-college
football star Gene Dickinson from 1952 to 1960. She had one daughter
with composer Burt Bacharach (together from 1965 to 1980) named
Nikki, who committed suicide in 2007 at age 40. One of Playboy
Magazines' “100 Sexiest Stars of the Century” (1999) and
TV Guide's “50 Sexiest TV Stars of All Time” (2002),
Dickinson had an on and off again relationship with legendary Frank
Sinatra for ten years. She was also once romantically involved with
actor David Janssen.

Bill of Rights

Childhood and Family:

The daughter of Frederica and Leo H. Brown, Angeline Brown, who
would later be popular as Angie Dickinson, was born on September 30,
1931, in Kulm, North Dakota. Her family owned and ran the local
newspaper office The Kulm Messenger and later the Edgeley Mail in the
1930s. When Angie was 11 years old, the Brown family relocated to
Burbank, California, where she would graduate from Bellamarine
Jefferson High School in 1997 at the age of 15. During her senior
year, she won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights essay contest.

Angie attended Glendale Community College in Glendale, California,
and graduated from Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles with a
degree in business in 1954. After college, she worked as a secretary
for a Burbank airplane parts factory for several years.

Influenced by her publishing father, young Angie originally wanted
to become a writer. However, after her success on the beauty contest
circuits, she began pursuing a career in show business.

On June 2, 1952, Angie married Gene Dickinson, a former football
player, but they divorced in 1960. She married composer Burt
Bacharach (born on May 12, 1928) on May 16, 1965. The coupled
welcomed a daughter named Lea Nikki Bacharach in 1966. They divorced
in 1980.

Born three months premature, Nikki suffered from chronic health
problems, including visual and Asperger's Disorder, a form of autism.
Angie declined numerous roles to focus on her daughter before she and
her husband decided to place Nikki at Minnesota's Wilson Center, a
psychiatric residential treatment facility for adolescents. The girl
stayed there for nine years.

Once a geology major at California Lutheran University, Nikki
committed suicide on January 4, 2007, in her apartment in Ventura
County, California. She was 40 years old.

Dressed to Kill

Career:

An aspiring writer who found work as a secretary after college,
Angie Dickinson entered the local beauty contest, Jack Roarke's
Beauty Parade, in 1952 at age 20 and won. She quickly forgot her
dreams of becoming a writer and went on to participate in the local
Miss America contest in 1953. She took second place in the
competition. Later that same year, she became one of five winners in
a beauty contest sponsored by NBC. She immediately branched out to
acting.

Throughout the 1950s, Dickinson was also busy establishing her
film career. She landed small roles in such productions as the
western “Tennessee's Partner” (1955, starred Ronald
Reagan and John Payne), “The Return of Jack Slade”
(1955), “Man with the Gun” (1955, starred Robert
Mitchum), “Hidden Guns” (1956), “Down Liberty Road”
(1956), “Tension at Table Rock” (1956), “Gun the
Man Down” (1956), “The Black Whip” (1956),
“Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend” (1957, starred Randolph
Scott), Samuel Fuller's “China Gate” (1957), “Calypso
Joe” (1957), “I Married a Woman” (1958, starred
George Gobel and Diana Dors) and “Cry Terror” (1958).
Thanks to Howard Hawks' classic western “Rio Bravo”
(1959), in which she was cast in her breakout role as a mysterious
woman who becomes romantically involved with Sheriff John T. Chance
(played by John Wayne), Dickinson rose to the status of being one of
Hollywood’s stars. Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan,
Ward Bond, John Russell and Harry Carey, Jr. also acted with her in
the film. Still in 1959, Dickinson was nominated for a Golden Laurel
for Top Female New Personality.

One of the more outstanding leading ladies of the 1960s, Dickinson
opened the decade with work alongside Ray Collins and John Bryant in
the William F. Claxton directed drama “I'll Give My Life”
(1960), Richard Burton and Jack Carson in Daniel Petrie's “The
Bramble Bush” (1960) and Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy
Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford in Lewis Milestone's heist
film “Ocean's Eleven” (1960, as Beatrice Ocean). Still in
1960, she was handed a Golden Globe Award in the category of Most
Promising Female Newcomer. The next few years, Dickinson was seen
staring in “A Fever in the Blood” (1961, with Efrem
Zimbalist Jr.), the based-on-novel “The Sins of Rachel Cade”
(1961, with Peter Finch and Roger Moore), “Rome Adventure”
(1962, with Troy Donahue), Jean Negulesco's “Jessica”
(1962, with Maurice Chevalier) and “Captain Newman, M.D.,”
(1963, with Gregory Peck). In the crime film “The Killer”
(1964), the second Hollywood adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's short
story of the same name, Angie offered a memorable portrayal of the
mistress of gangster Jack Browning (played by Ronald Reagan).

Starting in the mid 1960s, Dickinson found herself alternating
between starring and costarring roles. Her subsequent feature film
credits included the comedy “The Art of Love” (1965,
played the lovers of both James Garner and Dick Van Dyke), Arthur
Penn's drama “The Chase” (1966, starred Marlon Brando and
Jane Fonda), “Cast a Giant Shadow” (1966, with Kirk
Douglas, Frank Sinatra and John Wayne), “The Poppy Is Also a
Flower” (1966, opposite Stephen Boyd and Senta Berger), “The
Last Challenge” (1967, starred with Glenn Ford), “Sam
Whiskey” (1969, starred Burt Reynolds) and “Young Billy
Young” (1969, with Robert Mitchum). In 1967, Dickinson gave a
strong performance as Chris, Lee Marvin's sister-in-law, in John
Boorman's cult classic “Point Blank,” which was adapted
from the classic pulp novel “The Hunter” by Donald E.
Westlake. Despite her hectic film schedule, Dickinson also made
television appearances in such shows as “ Lock Up,” “The
Dick Powell Show,” “This Is the Life,” “The
Fugitive,” “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour” and “Bob
Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre.” She had a recurring role
in “Dr. Kildare” (1965), playing Carol Tredman.

After starring with Lloyd Bridges in the ABC made for TV film “The
Love War” (1970), Dickinson was cast as a sexy high school
teacher, Betty Smith, in the dark comedy “Pretty Maids All in a
Row” (1971), which was directed by Roger Vadim and produced by
Gene Roddenberry and based on a novel by Francis Pollini. She then
portrayed Jackie Kovacs in the French thriller “The Outside
Man” (1972) for director Jacques Deray, and starred as Wilma
McClatchie in “Big Bad Mama” (1974).

In March 1974, Dickinson made a guest appearance in the critically
acclaimed hit anthology series “Police Story,” where she
played Lisa Beaumont. Lured by the popularity of her performance, the
North Dakota native was offered by NBC to star in her own television
show. Premiering on September 13, 1974, “Police Woman”
was an immediate hit and later became the first successful primetime
drama series to feature a woman in the title role. It ran for four
seasons until March 29, 1978. For her good acting job as Sergeant
Suzanne 'Pepper' Anderson, she was nominated for three Emmy Awards in
the category of Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and four
Golden Globes for Best TV Actress - Drama, and won one in 1975. The
role also brought her Spain's TP de Oro for Best Foreign Actress.
After the demise of the series, Dickinson recreated her coveted role
for the TV special “Ringo” (1978), opposite Ringo Starr
and John Ritter. She then played Midge Forrest in the TV miniseries
“Pearl” (also 1978). The following year, she starred with
Lino Ventura in Claude Pinoteau's “The Angry Man” (1979).
After the adventure “Klondike Fever” (1980), she was cast
in Brian De Palma's “Dressed to Kill” (1980).

Dickinson next starred as Margot Wendice, opposite Christopher
Plummer as Tony Wendice, in the Emmy nominated television movie “Dial
M for Murder” (1981), which was adapted from a play by
Frederick Knott. She then played the Dragon Queen in the film
“Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen” (1981,
opposite Peter Ustinov) and was reunited with Lee Marvin in the
action film “Death Hunt” (1981, starring Charles Bronson.
Dickinson then returned to series TV in the short lived detective
series “Cassie and Company” (1982).

Angie continued to make a number of TV films throughout the 1980s,
including “One Shoe Makes It Murder” (1982), “Jealousy”
(1984), “A Touch of Scandal” (1984), “Stillwatch”
(1987),”'Police Story: The Freeway Killings” (1987),
“Once Upon a Texas Train” (1988), “Fire and Rain”
(1989) and “Prime Target” (1989). She then portrayed
Sadie LaSalle in the TV miniseries “Hollywood Wives”
(1985), which was adapted from a novel by Jackie Collins. In 1987,
she made a comeback to the big screen in the sequel “Big Bad
Mama II” (1987), reprising her role of Wilma McClatchie. Also
that year, she hosted a December showing of “Saturday Night
Live.”

In 1993, Dickinson landed the supporting role of Josie in the ABC
miniseries “Wild Palms.” Costars of the show included
James Belushi, Dana Delany, Robert Loggia and Kim Cattrall. Later
that same year, she could be seen on the wide screen playing Miss
Adrian in Gus Van Sant's disappointing drama “Even Cowgirls Get
the Blues,” her first film since 1987. She followed it up with
roles in the films “The Maddening” (1995, as the wife of
Burt Reynolds), Sydney Pollack's critically acclaimed romantic comedy
“Sabrina” (1995, played Mrs. Ingrid Tyson) and “The
Sun, the Moon and the Stars” (1996, starred as Abbie McGee).
Meanwhile, on TV, she portrayed roles in the films “Remembrance”
(1996), “Deep Family Secrets” (1997), “The Don's
Analyst” (1997) and “Sealed with a Kiss” (1999) and
made guest appearances in such shows as “Daddy Dearest”
(1993), “Diagnosis Murder,” “Ellen” and
“George & Leo” (all 1997).

Entering the new millennium, Dickinson was featured as a poker
player in “The Last Producer” (2000), a drama helmed by
two time costar Burt Reynolds, was cast as the grandmother of Gwyneth
Paltrow in “Duets” (2000), and played an alcoholic mother
to Helen Hunt in the movie “Pay It Forward” (2000), which
was adapted from Catherine Ryan Hyde's book of the same name. She
next portrayed Mrs. Barlow in “Big Bad Love” (2001), a
drama directed by and starring Arliss Howard, made an appearance in
the remake “Ocean's Eleven” (2001), directed by Steven
Soderbergh, and played a small role in Joel Zwick's comedy “Elvis
Has Left the Building” (2004).

After appearing in an episode of “Judging Amy” (2004),
Dickinson revisited television films in “Mending Fences”
(2009). The Hallmark Channel drama was directed by Stephen
Bridgewater and starred Laura Leighton, Peter Jason and David Lee
Smith.